Silly moments
Feb. 11th, 2003 07:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkMy e mail just received a spam with the title "Important News on Aging", which I deleted, because I think I know the news on aging well enough. I worked late last night, as I must take Thursday and Friday off for a family matter, and thus must get five days' work done in three.
I've been reading my friends' list, which has had so many interesting posts--amusing posts, poignant posts, and posts I really don't understand but like to read anyway. I like, somehow, that I think of my friends "as" their user icons, which I suppose makes it a relatively good thing that I do not have many friends with Tori Amos or Tori Spelling user icons, otherwise I might live in a Toriverse, a name so euphonious it evokes the Twilight Zone (although now that I think about it, one friend has a website called "Torinator", which is kinda a cool way to transmute Tori). Two quite different posts about curious memories got me thinking of silly things I've done. I remember the time I threw a party called an "un party" and served sliced pop tart squares as hors d'oevres. My co-workers, the principal invitees, were somewhat taken aback. Then there was my experiment during single days with placing a couple of "Men seeking Women" ads in the local alternative paper. I'll never forget how one won "ad of the week", and a free pizza, but got no replies. I suppose the opening line "down to earth erstwhile Christian surrealist seeks semi-cute paragon for mutual absurdity and fidelity" works better as ad copy than lifelong partner material. I think that I only went out on one date with a personal ad person, which went reasonably well, but I do remember being "stood up" by someone else. Although I probably miss something from my long-ago single days, I'm pretty sure that trying to date is not that thing. In those days just out of law school, I worked all the time. Although a secretary or two about my office indicated some interest, I always avoided office relationships. Of course, my dating exploits were not exactly the stuff of which legends are made. In high school, I actually asked the wrong woman with the exact same first and last name as the one I intended to ask to my ninth grade St. Patrick's Day banquet. The girl I asked proved to be enchantingly attractive, but conversation with a total stranger proved to be a novel thing.
I largely missed out on blind dates. I remember going on but two blind dates arranged for me. Neither was at all a match, and in both cases, I was intrigued that the person who "set up" the date imagined any potential for a match. I think that nothing tells one how odd one's friends think one is than when one's friend chooses one's blind date partner. Now that I think about it, I realize that in my life I have never had any desire to match any person up with any other person--even friends of mine I've thought were so cool that they should be with someone. Relationships are so difficult and complex, who could ever arrange them? Probably someone named Tatiana or Elke, who can run ads featuring drop-dead gorgeous "directors" of some "meet 'em for lunch, ditch 'em if you hate 'em" matchmaker service in the alternative paper, right by the restaurant guide, but not me.
Lately, I'm thinking of writing LJ posts called "100 things you may not know about me" and "100 examples of my dark side", which shows me that I have finally become a full-fledged "fill out every poll and brag that your poll result is Papa Smurf" LJ user. I liked![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pigri's suggestion that I write "what I like about each of my LJ friends", which will be a fun exercise. I already realize that the half-dozen unfinished novels on my friends' list should be condensed into one immense work of dada fiction genius.
Suggested new nautical prayer: "Save me from things that dwell within the sea, and stop those lawyers from calling me".
I've been reading my friends' list, which has had so many interesting posts--amusing posts, poignant posts, and posts I really don't understand but like to read anyway. I like, somehow, that I think of my friends "as" their user icons, which I suppose makes it a relatively good thing that I do not have many friends with Tori Amos or Tori Spelling user icons, otherwise I might live in a Toriverse, a name so euphonious it evokes the Twilight Zone (although now that I think about it, one friend has a website called "Torinator", which is kinda a cool way to transmute Tori). Two quite different posts about curious memories got me thinking of silly things I've done. I remember the time I threw a party called an "un party" and served sliced pop tart squares as hors d'oevres. My co-workers, the principal invitees, were somewhat taken aback. Then there was my experiment during single days with placing a couple of "Men seeking Women" ads in the local alternative paper. I'll never forget how one won "ad of the week", and a free pizza, but got no replies. I suppose the opening line "down to earth erstwhile Christian surrealist seeks semi-cute paragon for mutual absurdity and fidelity" works better as ad copy than lifelong partner material. I think that I only went out on one date with a personal ad person, which went reasonably well, but I do remember being "stood up" by someone else. Although I probably miss something from my long-ago single days, I'm pretty sure that trying to date is not that thing. In those days just out of law school, I worked all the time. Although a secretary or two about my office indicated some interest, I always avoided office relationships. Of course, my dating exploits were not exactly the stuff of which legends are made. In high school, I actually asked the wrong woman with the exact same first and last name as the one I intended to ask to my ninth grade St. Patrick's Day banquet. The girl I asked proved to be enchantingly attractive, but conversation with a total stranger proved to be a novel thing.
I largely missed out on blind dates. I remember going on but two blind dates arranged for me. Neither was at all a match, and in both cases, I was intrigued that the person who "set up" the date imagined any potential for a match. I think that nothing tells one how odd one's friends think one is than when one's friend chooses one's blind date partner. Now that I think about it, I realize that in my life I have never had any desire to match any person up with any other person--even friends of mine I've thought were so cool that they should be with someone. Relationships are so difficult and complex, who could ever arrange them? Probably someone named Tatiana or Elke, who can run ads featuring drop-dead gorgeous "directors" of some "meet 'em for lunch, ditch 'em if you hate 'em" matchmaker service in the alternative paper, right by the restaurant guide, but not me.
Lately, I'm thinking of writing LJ posts called "100 things you may not know about me" and "100 examples of my dark side", which shows me that I have finally become a full-fledged "fill out every poll and brag that your poll result is Papa Smurf" LJ user. I liked
pigri's suggestion that I write "what I like about each of my LJ friends", which will be a fun exercise. I already realize that the half-dozen unfinished novels on my friends' list should be condensed into one immense work of dada fiction genius.Suggested new nautical prayer: "Save me from things that dwell within the sea, and stop those lawyers from calling me".
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
*puffs up chest*
Date: 2003-02-11 07:45 am (UTC)Re: *puffs up chest*
Date: 2003-02-11 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 08:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 06:22 pm (UTC)If you ever think of a post topic, post it in my recent poll--I try to do all the ones I can muster up the imagination to do.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 10:14 am (UTC)That would be interesting. I almost want to do that myself, but sadly there are some people on my friends list that I'd really have a hard time thinking of anything good to say about.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 12:37 pm (UTC)By the way, what are "pop tarts"?
no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 02:54 pm (UTC)They are very pre packaged, sort of like a McDonalds' sort of
homogenization, as they come in little boxes in which three sets of two pastries are pre-sealed. think "machine like", not "gooey bakery"
I forswear junk food again, but I used to love brown sugar cinnamon.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 10:21 pm (UTC)no subject
*groan* *whine*
I'll be curious to see what you have to say if you do dive into the memes.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 02:55 pm (UTC)lj friends
Date: 2003-02-11 07:00 pm (UTC)and good writing and I am adding you
to my friends list so this courtesy note,
drop by mine if you like and add if it
seems or not contrariwise as tweedledum would
say and in every case blessin's
lj=seraphimsigrist
+Seraphim Joseph Sigrist.
Re: lj friends
Date: 2003-02-11 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-02-11 09:38 pm (UTC)I find your dating comments very intriguing. Strangely, I actually really never dated at all, and often ponder that in terms of a lifetime of memories and reflecting when I am older. I can't actually say I have ever been asked and attended a "date" in my entire adult life. But then again, I am almost 25 and have been with my boyfriend for almost 5 years. I just happened to meet someone very young that I fell totally in love with. I have many friends who date for sport and who do not understand my desire to stay with one person. I have had many a friend ask me to set them up, but you hit the nail on the head...people and things are so complex, what makes us think that we can arrange them based on a similar tv show interest? I have found some of the most boring people in my life are the people I actually have things in common with.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-12 02:03 am (UTC)At least, as long as he's not focused on Toriential rains or
Toriwax, good for car washing, or something.
I almost put into the post something that you touched on. I believe there is one of those rather few generational differences in the way dating is done. When I was 25, a goodly number of people didn't date, but instead went into relationships among friends or people they hung out with, but now, it's my perception that a great mass of people don't "date" per se, but just go into relationships with people they know. I think that the formalities, already relaxed by my teen days, have now relaxed even more. Oddly, though, I think Valentine's Day is much more of an event than it was then :).
3 things typed in response
Date: 2003-02-12 04:42 am (UTC)As for '100 things' posts, I'd read all 100 of yours with great enthusiasm. I have recently succumbed to an urge to 'list' in LJ, and no bad has come from it (yet) that I'm aware of.
P.s. The living treasure knows my Dad as Poppa Smurf, and his qualities are all the sort one should be proud of possessing, I believe.
Re: 3 things typed in response
Date: 2003-02-12 05:12 am (UTC)I always wonder if different places don't have different traditions about dating. I don't know anything about that.
I always thought of myself as having far less social life than most, although I can probably count date on a few hands rather than two. I certainly can count serious relationships on a finite number of fingers, though.
Poppa Smurf is pretty cool, I admit. When I was a kid, though, the parents' coalitions for right thinking convinced the TV networks to eliminate virtually all violence in childrens' TV overnight. Suddenly, instead of Superman and the Justice League, we had the Smurfs. The parents were probably right, the ban didn't "take", and probably we're all worse for the violence in cartoons (which are normally aired here in big blocks on Saturday morning). But the Smurfs somehow symbolize for me the change of TV from flavorful to bland. But Smurfs represent a lot of good values, I must admit.
Good versus evil
Date: 2003-02-12 11:48 am (UTC)I'm guessing the parent's coalition was long since overturned (or never made it down here), because I can't change channels from the government station here without coming across violent cartoons. Sure, they're largely anime, and the 'goodies' beat the pants off the 'baddies' (quite often with a nice little moral tie-in at the end) but I still wonder why it has to come to violence before that happens.
In our search for meaning, I don't think it's against the rules to have fun. Flavourful beats bland and fun beats drudge (with a bodacious overdrawn hook to the jaw - or perhaps some of those floaty cyber-martial moves?). How about '100 reasons why violence in cartoons is a positive thing'? Okay, I'll settle for half a dozen. I'm on tenterhooks waiting for your 'dark side' list. What wicked secrets will you reveal, which your LJ audience will have difficulty comprehending, knowing you only as a thoroughly decent, caring and thoughtful human being?